Computer Troubleshoot

[Ninjai]

I just build my 1st computer today and for some reason it doesn't run properly. At times it wont show anything on the screen or even post. I tried clearing the cmos and that apparently fixed things but after a few restarts I have to restart to clear the cmos again.
The components I'm using are:
Amd 5000+
Asus M3A78 Pro motherboard
2x2gb g.skill ram
80gb maxtor ide hdd
lg sata dvd-rw
using integrated gfx
antec 300 case
scythe katana 2 hsf

I don't think it's a short since it works sometimes and not a juice problem since I got a pretty reliable sparkle psu.

P.S: Just before posting this msg, I was successful in installing vista ultimate 64bit but when I restarted the computer and it attempted to load the o.s I believe they are are called artifacts? started to show on the screen like a lot of them and then the system stalled.

[Shaftasaurus]

IDE HDD? Injustice :P

I'd try running a memtest (ie. from a Live CD of some sort) and if that yields nothing, try removing one component at a time and starting it up.

[Ninjai]

Ok I just took out one of the 2gb ram. Computer ran perfectly, restarted computer, okay again. Put in the other ram then it post okay. As soon as it got to the vista loading bar. Artifacts everywhere!. I'm pretty sure the ram is the problem but I'll just do some memory test to check if anything else could be a culprit.

[Ninjai]

scratch that. I made a stupid mistake..... I accidentally put them a1 b1 brackets instead of like a1, a2 they work fine now but apparently it's running in single channel mode. How would I change that?

[Ninjai]

New problem apparently... When I go into vista it has a error screen. Red horizontal lines and green vertical lines. Here is a picture of what it looks like. If I boot into safe boot that doesn't happen. So I'm not too sure what's wrong.

[Ninjai]

I guess I solved my own problem... I manually set the timings to the ram and now I don't get that vista error boot screen.